In 2016, we got “Don’t Breathe” when a small group of thieves broke into a dangerous blind man’s home. That same year, we also got “Hush”, which is the opposite with an innocent deaf woman having to defend her house from an individual killer trying to break inside. I can safely say that I enjoyed “Don’t Breathe” a lot more than this.

In “Hush”, Maddie (Kate Siegel) is a deaf writer, who lives in secluded home. A masked killer (John Gallagher Jr. “Peppermint”, “10 Cloverfield Lane”) is out to kill her. She must now figure out a way to defend herself as the killer continues to taunt her.

The Maddie character is not interesting. She’s deaf but has no personality whatsoever. The killer is appalling. He has the most generic mask I’ve ever seen. However, he ditches the mask early on so there’s no mystery. He wants to toy with Maddie. However, it becomes clear that this is a stupid idea. Instead of making Maddie particularly smart, the writers make the killer an idiot. We cannot get invested in Maddie’s struggles because the killer is made significantly less threatening than he should be. There are a few other characters but none of them are even vaguely interesting.

Watching a modern film about a deaf person means that we have to endure several lengthy moments where mobile phones are left ringing for what feels like an eternity. The killer is boring. Imagine if Michael Myers had taken off his mask and had a conversation with Laurie Strode in the “Halloween” films. When you make a killer incompetent in horror/thriller, our engagement in what unfolds onscreen is significantly diminished. “Don’t Breathe” gave us more competent characters and therefore, real tension. “Hush” just never quite gets things right and I certainly didn’t care about what happened.